ZTE is best known for making super-cheap phones that are sold on pre-paid carriers. However, its latest device goes after a different market entirely. The ZTE Axon is an all-metal premium smartphone priced at $450 that you can use on any GSM/LTE network.

The Axon has a hefty metal frame (175g is about as heavy as a Note 4) and some quirky triangular grilles. The screen is 1440p just like the G4 and GS6, but who knows if it's any good. On the back is a dual camera setup, which ZTE says is used to speed up autofocus and to do post-capture refocusing... because that worked out so well for HTC. But I digress.

Inside is a Snapdragon 810 (cue overheating jokes), 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. ZTE is particularly proud of the Hi-Fi audio support, which supposedly allows playback of 32-bit 192KHz audio files. The phone comes with a reasonably nice pair of JBL earbuds to take advantage of the audio features.

The Axon ships with Android 5.1 mostly unmodified. I'm not sure what's going on with the navigation buttons, though. In the press renders it looks like there's a single physical home button, but the video doesn't appear to show any nav buttons (is that share button in the app or on the phone?). We'll find out more when the device ships later this month. You can pre-order now for $449.98 in gold, black, or blue.

Comments

That share button is definitely on the screen in the video (look at the size of the bezel between the share button and the grille pattern), but I agree it looks like a set of capacitive buttons based on the press renders and the lack of nav bar in the video. Maybe they turn off until you touch them?

jonathan3579

They're capacitive buttons. I fucking hate Android Authority but watch their video and you'll see the device for a fairly lengthy hands-on.

Fifth313ment

Maybe the phone has capacitive buttons (which I prefer anyway) but the buttons they are talking about aren't capacitive. Lol, imagine a phone with a permanent share button! Sounds like a Facebook phone! What a great idea.... errrrr nevermind... :(

tom_roars

They are capacitive buttons. They turn off when not using it, back on when you touch the phone again

abqnm

These are typical ZTE style as of late. The back and recents keys are just dots, which allows for them to be reassigned without looking ridiculous (as capacitive buttons can't be reskinned like on-screen buttons). So if you want Samsung style with the back button on the right, that's entirely doable.

I wish I knew if there were more options other than swapping back and recents, or swapping recents for menu. This is clearly different software than previous devices, so without the device it's hard to say.

But yeah if you're going to use capacitive keys, making them pretty much universal and not tied to one specific function and icon is certainly a nice choice. It won't be for everyone, as I deal with plenty of people who would be lost without the specific iconography of the back button (and to a lesser extent, recents). But for anyone who can remember left or right instead of having to look, it's a very nice touch.

It's also possible they could do what many of the other Chinese manufacturers are doing and let you turn off the capacitive keys and use onscreen navigation. Though a nice option, I'd use the capacitive keys just for the extra screen space.

Daniel Walsh

Pretty good phone

matteventu

The front of the white variant is pretty amazing *-*
And the price is good, but shame for the missing of LTE band 20 (800MHz).

Blackangel3942

I agree and it has got me wondering if they will soon offer a white version because so far they have said that they are only offering black, blue, and gold versions.

Will this have dual sim like the ones they sell in Asia? I've actually looking at Xiaomi and other for my next phone

jonathan3579

No, this device has been designed and built exclusively for the US market.

Blackangel3942

If it were to have dual sim functionality it would need to have a dual sim tray like the Oppo R1, Xiaomi Mi Note, or Umi Zero (Pics 1-3 below) underneath the volume rocker like the Droid Turbo or Moto Maxx (Pic 4 below).

Fifth313ment

I don't understand why dual sim phones are so prevalent in Asia? The only reason I can see them for is like drug dealers, lol, jk. What is the point? I guess so you don't have to carry a work phone and home phone. But I don't think I would want all my stuff on my work phone anyway?

Godspoken

Not bad at all for the price.

AbbyZFresh

Them up-down bezels are giving me a headache. But the phone actually looks very nice and legit coming from a budget oriented OEM like ZTE.

Wait, theres Snapdragon 810 inside? Forget the good things I just said.